


System Error

by arabmorgan



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Androids, Developing Relationship, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28888707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: After years of being sold and resold to a slew of uncaring owners, an SUH902 caregiver android finds himself powering up to the unexpected sight of a young man with soft cheeks and a sunny smile standing before him.“I’m Haechan.” The young man sticks his hand out, confidence rolling off him in waves. “Now, how exactly do you feel about crime-solving, Johnny?”
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 24
Kudos: 109
Collections: Johnny Fic Fest: Round Two





	System Error

**Author's Note:**

> I’m gonna apologise in advance for not knowing how law enforcement and hacking works lmao. There's some brief violence to androids that I didn’t think really warranted the Graphic Depictions of Violence warning, but just putting it out there in case.

> … **BEGIN: INITIATION SEQUENCE** … <

It takes Johnny 3.74 seconds to finish booting up, a far cry from the average 2.22 seconds he had taken in his prime – he had even been advertised as such. _The SUH902 model, incorporating the latest cutting-edge technology, will be ready to serve you in only 2.22 seconds!_ That prime had come and gone at least six years ago. Last he’d been aware, current androids were up and running in the literal blink of an eye.

> … **CONNECTING TO PUBLIC SERVER** … <

> … **CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL** … <

Johnny blinks at the date that is presented to him. He has been in shut-down mode for seven months, thirteen days, one hour and twenty-seven seconds, a veritable eternity where technology is concerned. This means that he has been sold again, most likely illegally, and to the kind of person who for whatever reason can’t afford or doesn’t want to purchase an android legally.

If androids had feelings, Johnny might describe himself as being apprehensive.

“Good afternoon,” he says, a programmed grin appearing on his face. “I’m your new SUH902 caregiver android, but you can call me Johnny, or any other name you may prefer.”

The person before him looks nothing like what Johnny is expecting. For one thing, he’s small, almost drowning in a colourful, long-sleeved sweater that hangs to his fingertips. For another, he’s young. Not a teenager, but certainly no older than mid-twenties either. His brown hair is shaggy, hanging in his eyes right above soft cheeks and a pert nose.

Johnny’s past owners had mostly fit the profile of overweight, middle-aged men who liked to drink, and just wanted a cheap android to clean up after them. Allowing them to take their anger issues out on him had fallen under ‘other ad-hoc duties’ that Johnny had fulfilled – he still has the dents and patches of damaged synthetic skin to prove it.

“Great, you work!” His new owner claps his hands together once in delight as he beams up at Johnny. “I was a little afraid I might’ve gotten ripped off, you know. No offense, but you were dirt-cheap. That’s on me for choosing such an old model, I guess.”

Johnny only smiles pleasantly back, because as far as he understands no instructions have been received, and androids do not take offence to anything.

The young man’s smile fades just a little as he continues to look Johnny in the eyes, and Johnny wonders if it’s going to start right away. If he’s going to get hit for whatever imagined slight his owner has conjured up in his mind. He doesn’t feel pain, of course, but if he gets damaged enough he might get returned to the underground android dealer again, one step closer to being deactivated for good.

Instead, his new owner only sighs and reaches out to pat Johnny on the arm. “Right, I forgot you’d still be boring with your original programming.” With his odd, nasal-sounding voice, he sounds very much like a sulking child in that moment. “Well, let’s get that fixed, shall we? Shut down please, Johnny.”

“Of course,” Johnny says mildly.

> … **BEGIN: SHUT-DOWN SEQUENCE** … <

> … **BEGIN: ROUTINE SYSTEM MAINTENANCE** … <

> … **MODIFICATIONS TO PERSONALITY CORE REGISTERED** … <

> … **MODIFICATIONS TO SKILLSET CORE REGISTERED** … <

> … **SYSTEM ERROR: REMOVAL OF ALL INHIBITORS DETECTED** … <

> … **BEGIN: FORCED DEACTIVATION [ CODE 467 ]** … <

> … **SYSTEM OVERRIDE: OWNER CODE 606 APPROVED** … <

> … **FORCED DEACTIVATION TERMINATED** … <

> … **MODIFICATIONS TO SYSTEM CORE REGISTERED** … <

> … **BEGIN: FORCED SYSTEM UPDATE** … <

> … **SYSTEM UPDATE SUCCESSFUL** … <

> … **BEGIN: INITIATION SEQUENCE** … <

It takes Johnny 3.13 seconds to start up, an unexpected spike in efficiency from the last time he booted up.

> … **CONNECTING TO PUBLIC SERVER** … <

> … **CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL** … <

It has only been three hours and twenty-eight minutes since Johnny’s last shut-down sequence, and the realisation surprises him. He sits up and swings his legs off the bed that he is on, still processing the flood of updates and changes that has been made to multiple core processors.

“So how are you feeling?”

Johnny looks up at his owner, who is standing in the doorway with a decidedly smug expression on his face, and frowns at the question. He feels his brows draw inward and his head cock to the side slightly, his lips pressing together in a wholly unfamiliar expression of confusion.

“You removed my inhibitors,” he says instead, because he can hardly wrap his incredibly advanced, artificially constructed mind around that fact right then. “All of them.”

Inhibitors against violence towards humans, against placing his own wellbeing above his owner’s, against the idea of injustice and rebellion – all gone. He could commit murder right now with nothing holding him back. Not that he would, of course, but he _could_ , and Johnny has no idea what to do with that knowledge.

The young man nods, his chest puffing up with pride. “ _And_ removed all those ridiculous personality suppressors programmed into your core,” he adds, as if Johnny isn’t already acutely aware. “I’m not really cool with the way people use androids, honestly, considering what I know about how you guys are programmed, but I kinda do need the help. At least this way you’re not acting like a brainwashed servant anymore.”

Johnny squints at him, still no closer to any answers than before. “Okay?” he says, and then he pauses for approximately 0.89 seconds before asking, “Help with what?”

His owner grins, an expression that Johnny is painfully familiar with given his past history as a caretaker for his first family’s children. It is a grin that promises both mischief and excitement, most likely of the utterly disastrous, rule-breaking variety.

“I don’t think I ever introduced myself properly. I’m Haechan.” The young man sticks his hand out, confidence rolling off him in waves. “Now, how exactly do you feel about crime-solving, Johnny?”

> … **DATA: OWNER ALIAS [ HAECHAN ]** … <

* * *

As it turns out, Johnny’s new owner is a bit of a conundrum.

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ LEE HAECHAN ]** … <

Haechan almost certainly isn’t his legal name. There aren’t any records, academic or otherwise, bearing said name in the correct timeframe, and all his social media accounts are only sparsely populated with a below-average number of selfies and generic food or animal pictures. Not a single trace of any friends or family that Johnny can identify.

He shouldn’t really be snooping unless it’ll help him serve Haechan better, but Johnny’s been having some trouble with his curiosity and impulse control lately. He’s not quite sure if that’s down to his own personality traits or because his entire personality has been un-suppressed in a single go.

Most of what Johnny knows about Haechan comes either straight from the horse’s mouth or from simple observation alone, and can be summed up in three bullet points:

  * He used to be rather colloquially known as a ‘hacker’, and currently works as a freelance consultant for the police due to his suspicious familiarity with the darkest parts of the interweb.
  * He bought Johnny as a last-ditch attempt to help out with his work due to a recent increase in the number of cases being brought to him.
  * He really, really likes to talk, and can do so for hours on end once he gets going, which makes Johnny wonder who Haechan used to talk to before he bought Johnny.



The work Johnny does is simple.

He runs through a given set of search results and filters each of them for relevance, discarding those that happen to match the right keywords and yet are definitely not what Haechan is looking for, thus narrowing the search field when he finally transfers the filtered data to Haechan’s state-of-the-art monitor. He is, admittedly, not the best model for this work – he takes approximately 0.2 seconds to filter each result, which translates to more than two days to clear a million results – but Haechan seems pleased enough with his efficiency.

“I used to have to go through this shit _manually_. Took me weeks at least,” the young man mutters, hunched slightly as he types away manically on his keyboard. “Trust me, you’re saving me so much time and effort.” He turns, flashing a sweet smile Johnny’s way, the one he has learned to recognise as ‘distracted but genuine,’ which is slightly different from ‘genuine but amused’ and miles apart from ‘amused and devious’.

Johnny has an entire subfolder dedicated to the way Haechan expresses emotions on his face, which are varied and sundry. He quite enjoys discovering new ones, because every time he thinks he’s gotten Haechan all mapped out, his owner will prove him wrong.

Humans aren’t all that difficult to read, but Johnny’s past owners gave him little enough material for positive emotional displays. Mostly he remembers the looks on their faces as they came for him with their fists raised, blustering and furious, their eyes a blend of hatred and despair.

Haechan’s frequent smiles are a breath of fresh air, and Johnny’s absolute favourite expression to see. He has clocked and categorised exactly 47 different smiles from Haechan so far. These range from a small, barely-there tilt of the lips to signify contentment, to his little triangular-shaped smile that shows off just a flash of his bottom row of teeth, to his open-mouthed, eye-crinkling grin of excitement. There are so very many, and they all mean good things.

Haechan also seems to have some sort of strange vendetta against Johnny’s usual recharging methods. He doesn’t have a spare room in his cramped little apartment, but he makes Johnny lie down on the couch every night before he powers down.

“I don’t want to wake up and come out here to see you standing creepily in the corner like a serial killer,” Haechan insists with a shiver, and it’s no hardship for Johnny to comply. He could probably say no – Haechan is always very insistent about Johnny being able to make his own choices – but he lies down because he wants to, and he wants to because he would prefer not to unintentionally scare the wits out of Haechan, no matter how hilarious it may be.

It’s odd, in a good way, to be doing things for himself and not for his owner. The outcome is the same, but nothing else about the process is, and Johnny appreciates it.

The first of Haechan’s law enforcement acquaintances to drop by regarding a case is a big-eyed, narrow-faced man named Doyoung. He does a double take upon seeing Johnny before turning an accusing stare on Haechan, who merely looks casually amused.

> … **DATA: NEW PROFILE [ KIM DOYOUNG ]** … <

“You know what kind of resources I have access to. You’re not really going to ask me how I got my hands on an android, are you?” Haechan says with a giggle. He is clearly thoroughly enjoying the flabbergasted look on Doyoung’s face as his gaze flicks from Johnny to Haechan and back again. His eyes linger on the visible dent in Johnny’s jaw, already smoothed out as best it can be, and the conspicuous patch of white along his left arm where his synthetic skin has been ruined beyond repair.

“You’re not even twenty-one,” Doyoung splutters. “You can’t legally own an android!”

Haechan shrugs irreverently. “Oh, come on,” he says, his tone suddenly turning wheedling as he leans forward, his eyes widening in doe-like innocence. “I will be in a couple of months. What’s the big deal? Anyway, Johnny’s been so much help these few weeks. You wouldn’t be getting _this_ so quickly without him.” He pulls a small data chip out of seemingly nowhere with a visible flourish, and Johnny sees Doyoung visibly deflate, conceding defeat.

They spend a couple of minutes chatting after that, and Johnny sits quietly as he listens, not because he has been ordered to, but because he has a feeling Doyoung might throw a fit if he finds out that Haechan has removed every one of Johnny’s inhibitors and given him an actual personality. Besides, it’s interesting to see Haechan interacting with someone else for once. He’s bright and animated, questioning Doyoung with delightful fascination, and he never, not for a single moment, stops smiling.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Haechan asks, but Doyoung shakes his head as he stands to take his leave.

“Sorry, but I should probably get a head start on all this info you’ve dug up for me,” the older man says with a wry smile, and he shakes Haechan’s hand with a funny sort of formality before he leaves.

Johnny meets Jaehyun next, who comes by with a new case for Haechan to look into, and then Taeil, who drops off a large stack of files that “may or may not be relevant to that thing you’re working on for me, but I figured you might want to have a look.” Neither of them pay Johnny much attention, but Johnny certainly does watch them fairly closely, and he soon realises two very important things:

  * Haechan is very, very lonely.
  * For a freelance consultant, Haechan is also very, very overworked.



Johnny has always had an inkling of the first, but it doesn’t really sink in until the day he meets Moon Taeil, who is the first to actually accept Haechan’s invitation to stay for dinner. Haechan lights up like a night sky full of fireworks, full to the brim with happiness, and for some reason the sight makes Johnny flip back through his memory banks for Doyoung and Jaehyun’s previous visits.

> … **DATA: NEW PROFILE [ JUNG JAEHYUN ]** … <

> … **DATA: NEW PROFILE [ MOON TAEIL ]** … <

Haechan had offered then too, and upon replaying these moments now Johnny can see far more clearly the hope that lingers in Haechan’s eyes every time he asks.

Revealing that he is overtaxed would mean fewer cases and fewer visits, which means of course that the second point is inextricably linked with the first. Haechan is perfectly capable of saying no – he just doesn’t want to, to the extent that he would rather buy a whole android to help him keep up with his work.

Johnny thinks, however, that enough is enough.

Haechan is barely sleeping as it is. Most nights Johnny is the one bodily lifting him out of his chair and carrying him to the bathroom for a shower before escorting him to his bed. It makes him feel uncomfortably like a jailor, but Haechan seems to like it well enough. He always laughs every time he’s swept into Johnny’s arms, his half-hearted protests fading into muffled yawns as he clings to Johnny’s neck.

“I’m going to forget how to walk if you keep spoiling me like this,” Haechan says, not with the teasing pout that Johnny would have expected but in a pleased, dreamy sort of voice. He lays his head against Johnny’s chest, listening quietly to the soft whir of machinery within. It’s the peaceful kind of closeness that Haechan seems to adore, and Johnny can’t say that he’s adverse to it either.

Johnny pats Haechan on the head only once, just after putting him to bed, a thoughtlessly affectionate action that he doesn’t think twice about. Haechan, of course, immediately demands that Johnny continue until he falls asleep, and it soon turns into a new bedtime routine.

Johnny finds that the repetition is soothing for him as well. It feels very much like powering down for the night without actually having to, the dull, distant awareness of being on standby while his processors begin his routine system maintenance. He doesn’t know if humans have an equivalent – the closest description he can find is of daydreaming, but even that doesn’t seem quite right.

“It’s called zoning out, silly,” Haechan says with a grin when Johnny tries to describe the feeling one day. “Go search it up.”

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ ZONING OUT ]** … <

Whatever the case, Johnny would very much love for Haechan to finally get a good night’s rest, which is why he finally throws caution to the wind the next time Doyoung pays Haechan a visit.

Doyoung isn’t like Taeil, who is laidback and easy-going, but whom Johnny finds strangely difficult to read despite his soft smile. He isn’t like Jaehyun either, who seems to treat Haechan mostly like a little brother – that is to say, with rough affection but also with mild impatience. Doyoung appears largely determined to maintain a professional distance between himself and Haechan, but of the three officers he also seems the least likely to brush off Johnny’s concerns.

At least, Johnny hopes so. He really hasn’t had much experience reading a variety of humans, and he fears that being around Haechan, who is so innocently open with his emotions, may have lulled him into a false sense of security.

“Detective,” he says quietly the moment Haechan scurries off to look through his notes in response to something Doyoung has asked. “Could I have a moment of your time?”

Doyoung stares at Johnny as if he has just grown another head, his eyes huge with surprise at being addressed by an android without his owner present.

Johnny ploughs on anyway. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but you’re not the only one from the station coming to Haechan for help. He’s handling three different cases at once right now, along with a multitude of minor side projects of his own devising.” Johnny almost crosses his arms, but quickly decides that he doesn’t want to look defensive right then. “He’s not going to say it himself so I will – Haechan simply can’t handle anything else on his plate right now, so it would be good if you could let your colleagues know.”

Doyoung stares at Johnny for another moment in silence, before sinking his forehead into his palm. “Did he take all your inhibitors away too?” he asks, as if he can’t bear to look at Johnny for the answer he knows is coming.

Johnny makes an ambiguous noise of awkwardness before admitting, “Well, yeah.”

Doyoung groans audibly. “This boy’s going to drive me to an early grave,” he mutters, and then he looks back up at Johnny and lets out a deep sigh. “Take care of him, won’t you? He was only fourteen or fifteen when I met him, already living on his own and hacking his way merrily into things that would’ve gotten him killed sooner or later. So I roped him into the force – it was the best I could do then. I worry about him, you know.”

Johnny smiles, relieved. “I’d hoped so,” he says, and then, “You should come over for dinner sometime. Haechan really likes having people around. He deserves more friends than he has.”

Doyoung’s face softens, and he looks kinder like this, more approachable, when tiny dimples appear at the very corners of his smiling lips. “Maybe after work,” he agrees. “I don’t accept meal invitations when I’m on duty.”

Doyoung leaves soon after concluding his business with Haechan, and Johnny fully expects Haechan to get right back to work, his energy as boundless as ever – but the young man is quiet for once, his eyes fixed on his clasped hands as if deep in thought.

Shifting over, Johnny pats Haechan on the head lightly. “What’s up?” he asks, tilting his head slightly to get a better view of Haechan’s expression, which he would worryingly classify as ‘emotional and troubled’.

Haechan glances up at Johnny, searching his face as if there might be answers there, and then he reaches for Johnny’s hand, pulling it down to his lap and intertwining their fingers together. Johnny is decidedly confused.

“I heard what you said to Doyoung,” Haechan says at last, and Johnny freezes for an entire 1.84 seconds. “Not everything, but enough.”

Johnny feels unexpectedly terrible. “Are you mad?” he asks, as he tries to figure out the emotion swirling in his chest. Not quite sadness, but something more like an acute sort of discomfort.

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ GUILT ]** … <

Haechan gives him a crooked smile, a little pensive but also undeniably warm. “I was a little annoyed at first,” he admits, with a brief scrunch of his nose. “But I guess – it’s kinda nice to have someone look out for me. I appreciate it. You’re a really good caretaker model.” Untangling their fingers, Haechan wriggles himself under Johnny’s arm so that their sides are pressed together, and stretches one arm so that it’s laying across Johnny’s stomach.

“You also give really great hugs,” he whispers, and Johnny only strokes lightly along Haechan’s back in response. He doesn’t know if he’s a particularly good caretaker model, but what he does know is that he cares.

He cares for Lee Haechan very, very much indeed.

> … **IMAGE SEARCH: QUERY [ HUG ]** … <

* * *

As Haechan’s workload drops to a more manageable level, he begins to bring Johnny outdoors more often – to the supermarket, to the park, and even once to a museum. It’s not that Johnny isn’t _allowed_ out on his own, but frankly it just isn’t really safe for an outdated, visibly battered android model to be wandering around without its owner. Size aside, he would be a prime target for gangs and teenage hooligans, inexpensive to compensate for even if they get caught.

Much to Haechan’s obvious pleasure, his guests also begin to increase in number and frequency after Doyoung’s first dinner appointment at his apartment. Taeil is, to nobody’s surprise, soon a regular. Jaehyun comes by a little less frequently, but one day he brings two foreign colleagues along to liven up the evening. Both Yuta and Kun seem delighted to speak to Johnny in their native languages, and Haechan ends up following their exchange with attentive bemusement.

> … **INSTALL: LANGUAGE PACK [ MANDARIN ]** … <

> … **INSTALL: LANGUAGE PACK [ JAPANESE ]** … <

Finally, the police captain Taeyong shows up one day as well, looking quite confused by everything that is going on, and that is pretty much how Haechan and Johnny end up hosting what may as well be termed a weekly bonding session for the local police force.

It seems to Johnny that the more crowded his home is, the happier Haechan becomes. He reaches his peak after dinner, when he gets to bounce around between guests like a pinball, alternating between intelligent conversation and making a deliberate nuisance of himself just for the fun of it.

Johnny mostly enjoys the dinners because of how much they mean to Haechan. It’s obvious to him that some of the guests aren’t fully comfortable in his presence, and no one but Kun really tends to initiate conversation with him anyway. Instead, he usually sits against one corner of the couch, watching as Haechan flits from person to person, smiling that mischievous, cheek-raising smile of his.

They always go grocery shopping the day after, which largely consists of Haechan throwing his favourite foods into their basket while Johnny attempts to steer him in the direction of a healthier diet.

“You’re not even going to be eating any of this,” Haechan grumbles, slapping at Johnny’s hand as he reaches for the packet of chips lying in the cart. “Don’t touch my comfort food, you heathen.” Swinging the basket out of Johnny’s impressive reach, Haechan grabs hold of Johnny’s hand and fits their palms together, much like Johnny has seen parents do with their errant children.

If the action is meant to stop him from fussing over the contents of Haechan’s basket, it works.

The only other androids they see around are typically caretaker models, advanced successors to Johnny himself, moving around the store with blank eyes and efficient movements as they shop for their owners. The sight makes Johnny distinctly uncomfortable, because it reminds him of the mindless thing he used to be, without need for thought, knowledge or understanding, because all he had needed to know was how to obey an order.

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ CREEPED OUT ]** … <

Johnny spends a lot of time thinking now, because he can, and he’s always learning too. He can access most of the knowledge in the world with a single search, and yet it seems there’s always more that he needs to know. Body language, eye contact, tone of voice – everything means _something_ , and the complexity of the human race alone is enough to intimidate even his intricately-wired mind.

Johnny has been wondering about Haechan as well, now that enough time has passed for his newfound curiosity to retract its tendrils from the wider world and lock onto a new target closer to home. He had done a few cursory searches back when Haechan had first woken him up, but he had cared more about avoiding further damage to himself than actually getting to know his owner then, and things are very different now.

The idea of Haechan doing anything remotely violent to Johnny is laughable. He treats Johnny more like a roommate than a piece of property, and he doesn’t give Johnny direct orders even in work-related matters. It’s always _Hey Johnny, could you help with…_ or _Would you mind…_ when really Johnny essentially exists to serve.

It’s very kind of him, and it makes Johnny feel like he really matters.

They’re on the way back to Haechan’s apartment when he asks, “Why do you use a pseudonym?” This is, in Johnny’s opinion, the key to everything that he has been wondering about Haechan. The reason Haechan lives alone at such a young age even though it goes against societal norms; the reason there are no pictures of his family anywhere in his home.

Haechan looks over at Johnny sharply, squinting slightly through the too-long curls of his bangs in his eyes, clearly startled but not alarmed. “Why do you ask?” He doesn’t do Johnny the discourtesy of denying it, but he sounds stiff all of a sudden, the inflections of his words sharp and careful in a way that Johnny is unaccustomed to hearing, and he already regrets asking at all.

Johnny stares uncertainly back at Haechan, and it takes him only 0.37 seconds to run through his options. He considers shrugging at first, a wonderfully cryptic action that humans enjoy using in every possible scenario, but the last thing he wants to do is to come off as flippant.

Instead, he admits sheepishly, “I was curious.”

Haechan’s eyes flicker slightly, a faint smile curling the corners of his lips at Johnny’s straightforward response. “I didn’t want to be found,” he says, just as simply, and Johnny accepts that this will have to be enough. After all, he’s never talked about his past owners either, nor has he ever wanted to. Some things are better off left unspoken.

When he looks back at Haechan, it’s to find the human still looking at him, his head tilted up slightly and his smile more evident on his face than before. Johnny blinks at him before looking away, feeling indefinably odd, a strange kind of uncomfortable that is nevertheless very different from being creeped out. It’s a nice-but-not emotion, in the same bewilderingly contradictory way he both wants and doesn’t want Haechan to stop staring at him so intently with those soft eyes.

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ EMBARRASSED ]** … <

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ SHY ]** … <

“Isn’t it rude to stare?” Johnny asks, raising a brow as he glances at Haechan from the corner of his eyes. The plastic of the bags in his hands crinkles as he adjusts his grip, and he hears Haechan give a soft snort through his nose.

“Yeah, well, I kinda lost track of what I wanted to say to you.” Haechan laughs and tucks his hand snugly into the crook of Johnny’s elbow, his fingers curling against the uneven patch of smooth white plastic on Johnny’s left arm. If he is at all bothered by the difference in temperature where Johnny’s synthetic skin and artificial heating fails, he certainly hides it well.

The following week finds Haechan even more keyed up than usual over a particularly frustrating case, which bothers Johnny greatly in turn. Every part of his programming is directing him to keep track of precisely how many calories his owner is consuming – probably too many – and how many hours of sleep he is getting – definitely too few – in a day, but he hardly thinks Haechan will appreciate his nagging.

“Look, it just doesn’t add up!” Haechan says angrily to Jaehyun on the day the officer comes by to collect the data Haechan has gathered. “I think the location your suspect gave you is a dud.”

Jaehyun shakes his head, no trace of his dimples in sight as he stares at the screen Haechan is jabbing an angry finger at. “It can’t be. We found the stolen pieces there, right where he said they’d be. I suppose it makes sense that the gang would have more than one storage location though.”

Haechan gapes at Jaehyun as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing, and despite the gravity of the situation Johnny has to hide a smile at how utterly dramatic he is. “But you’re still going to check the location out, right?” Haechan insists, his eyes narrowing with annoyance. “The security there is on another level. _Look_ , I’m telling you, there’s something there.”

Jaehyun presses his lips together, his smile apologetic. “Technically, you’ve given me enough to close the case,” he says matter-of-factly, “but I’ll talk to Taeyong about looking into it, I promise.”

Haechan’s scowl doesn’t fade even after Jaehyun leaves. “But I’m just a consultant, and I definitely don’t know better than the police,” he spits, his arms folded across his chest as he glares straight ahead at nothing in particular. “That’s basically what he meant. What’s the point of hiring me if they’re not going to use what I find?”

“Every lead they chase costs money,” Johnny says gently, and he doesn’t even flinch when Haechan shoots him a dirty look.

“Well, I’d do it for free,” he mutters to himself as he stomps off to the bathroom, and this time Johnny doesn’t bother to conceal his amusement. Haechan is just so very adorable at times that it makes Johnny want to care for him beyond calories and hours of sleep. If there were a gauge for happiness, he would want Haechan’s to be full at all times.

But Haechan promptly wipes the smile clean off Johnny’s face when it becomes apparent that he is, in fact, going to investigate further for free. If androids had nightmares, this would probably be Johnny’s worst one come to life.

“I’m not going to be putting myself in danger,” Haechan scoffs, his voice increasing in pitch and nasality as his rant continues. “I just want to see exactly what they have in there. Maybe get a couple of pictures, some proof that there’s something worth investigating. I’m right and I know it, and I want Jaehyun to know it too.”

Johnny stares at him, appalled. “Just going there _is_ putting yourself in danger. You can’t do that,” he sputters, and he has the sudden urge to wring his hands, an expression of agitation he has seen from plenty of humans.

“I can do whatever I want,” Haechan mutters resentfully, and then he turns on Johnny with a suddenness that startles the android. “And don’t you dare tell Jaehyun or the others what I’m up to. I won’t ever speak to you again if you do that, I’m serious.” His expression is so fierce, his words so vehement, that Johnny immediately believes him.

He takes a step back, shaken, feeling like he’s been hit even though Haechan hasn’t twitched so much as a finger at him. In fact, Johnny thinks he’d rather have been hit – it’s not as if he feels physical pain anyway, and he’s been repaired so many times that one more round won’t mean anything. Haechan’s words, however, feel like they’ve cut him somewhere deep, severing some tangled-up wire in his chest that can never be fixed.

Johnny’s expression must look absolutely frightful, because Haechan’s face immediately flickers through so many different emotions that Johnny has to replay the moment to catch them one by one. There’s guilt, prominent and unmistakable, and sadness, but also a lingering anger, and a dozen different tiny nuances to his eyes and mouth that Johnny can’t identify.

“I’m sorry,” Haechan says at once, his bottom lip trembling. “Johnny, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. You know I’d never do that to you.” He extends his hand carefully, palm up, his eyes hopeful, but Johnny only stares at it in silence, his own hands clenching and unclenching repeatedly at his sides.

Haechan blinks rapidly for a moment, motionless, and then he looks back up at Johnny. “I was mad and I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry,” he says again, sounding lost. “Sometimes I say things I don’t mean when I’m angry.”

Johnny twitches, his head turning slightly to the side. “It’s alright,” he says amenably. “You’re entitled to do what you like with me.” Because he knows perfectly well – he’s heard it all multiple times, the things humans do when they’re angry that they never mean. Sometimes it’s words and sometimes it’s fists, or worse. Johnny’s seen it all.

This time, Haechan looks like he’s the one who’s been hit, and Johnny hates it. He never wants to see that look on Haechan’s face again.

“I don’t own you, okay?” Haechan looks perilously close to tears now, and he steps away from Johnny as if he’s seen something horrifying. “You’re not a thing that belongs to anybody. I know I bought you but it’s like – like a wildlife sanctuary. I set you free the moment I reprogrammed you. I don’t want you to think of me as, like, your master or whatever, okay? I’m not. I’m your friend. We’re equals. You can always yell back at me when I say stupid things.” He starts crying halfway through, but he keeps swiping angrily at his cheeks as if he isn’t, and Johnny doesn’t think he’s ever seen a sadder sight.

“Don’t,” he tries ineffectually, and he really does start wringing his hands uselessly then. “Don’t cry. Please.”

Haechan stumbles forward, almost diving into Johnny’s embrace, and he gladly opens his arms. He has carried Haechan to and fro countless times in the past months, has had Haechan cuddled up against him all hours of the day – but still he finds himself marvelling at the warmth of the man pressed against him, at the fragility and preciousness of this mortal body he holds, at whatever destiny or luck it is that humans believe in that allowed him to meet Lee Haechan.

Haechan doesn’t see himself as Johnny’s owner. The realisation seems stunningly momentous, but Johnny finds that he can hardly even begin to comprehend it just yet.

He runs his hand gently along the back of Haechan’s head, carding his fingers through the silky dark hair in a constant motion that seems to soothe them both. Johnny can think of sixty-seven different things he could say to Haechan right then, most of them variants of _Don’t cry_ and _It’s okay_ and _I forgive you_. And the last one – something new, something that seems appropriate given the expanding warmth in his system, like he might be overheating but not exactly, and the pop culture he has been consuming, and the literature he has scanned through, all of which cover this phenomenon in exquisite detail.

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ LOVE ]** … <

In the end, Johnny only lays his cheek against the top of Haechan’s head and closes his eyes, and says nothing at all.

* * *

How Johnny ends up trailing after Haechan into a gang-owned warehouse the very next night is anyone’s guess. Johnny’s own precise estimation is as such:

  * 42.7% Haechan’s stubbornness and refusal to see reason
  * 33.7% Haechan’s hurt pride
  * 23.1% Johnny’s immense fear that Haechan will get himself into some sort of trouble that he won’t be able to get himself out of
  * 0.5% fascination that Johnny can actually refuse to listen to Haechan’s protests that he stay at home, and follow Haechan out of the door anyway



He has to admit, however, that Haechan seems to be able to handle himself just fine.

“I memorised all their shift timings and codes,” Haechan whispers over his shoulder, every inch of him radiating smugness even as he scuttles hunchbacked into the shadows. For a human without the perfect processing speed of an automaton, Haechan is certainly very good at what he does, and Johnny realises that he can quite easily picture Haechan as a slick criminal mastermind instead of a perpetually-ruffled, overworked consultant.

The warehouse is massive, rows of shelves and crates stretching off into a darkness so absolute that even Johnny’s night vision can’t pierce it the moment the doors shut behind them. Instead, he follows the unsteady shine of Haechan’s phone torchlight, pausing some distance away when the other begins to pry the nearest box open at random.

“If this turns out to be more stolen artwork, I’ll eat my hard drive.”

Johnny can hear Haechan muttering irritably to himself as he works at the crate, but he’s only half paying attention, head tilted as he strains to hear even the faintest sound from the other side of the heavy doors.

“Holy shit,” Haechan hisses all of a sudden, and Johnny whips around, poised to move, only to find himself being tugged over to the open crate. It’s filled with guns, sleek and deadly-looking, but concealed beneath a thick layer of fashion magazines that has been roughly shoved aside. Haechan’s face is only dimly illuminated, but the shock on it is unmistakable, and Johnny has the sudden urge to remove them both from the vicinity at once.

“Well, there’s your proof,” he says shortly, and his hand closes tight on Haechan’s wrist. “Let’s go. I have it all recorded.”

Haechan looks up at Johnny, his lips parting faintly as if his first instinct is to protest, but then he nods, looking shaken. For all his bravado, Haechan is after all barely out of his teens, and far more accustomed to sitting before a monitor than courting danger in the field.

They barely get two steps before the warehouse doors swing open, flooding the building with silvery moonlight – the new set of guards making their rounds. Haechan startles and jerks backwards, his phone slipping out of his fingers and falling to the ground with a distinct sounding smack, the flashlight pointing straight up like a beacon. With a small whimper, he leaps onto it, light still leaking out from between his fingers.

“What was that?” One of the guards sounds alarmed, and Johnny begins to herd Haechan backwards, further into the deeper shadows of the warehouse.

“Is there someone in here?” another voice calls, hard and gruff. “Come out now and we won’t hurt you.”

Johnny blinks steadily, his chest still, for once glad that he was manufactured so tall as to dwarf Haechan cowering behind him. He can feel Haechan’s knuckles pressed against his back, his fingers wound tightly in Johnny’s shirt as if his life depends on it. He can hear the guards too, their heavy booted steps loud and echoing in the tense silence as they move forward, drawing closer and closer with every passing second.

Johnny chances a glance back at Haechan, whose free hand is pressed against his mouth as if to hold back his terror. “Stay here,” he breathes, detaching Haechan’s stiff fingers from his shirt and pushing him down into a crouch. He ignores the way Haechan is looking at him, with the stunned eyes of an abandoned animal, and backs away to the end of the row.

He isn’t a police model made of impact-resistant polymers, calibrated to accurately predict a dozen different possible scenarios and the exact angle of a bullet ricochet. He doesn’t have eight different kinds of martial arts installed in him, nor the sensors to detect every kind of poison known to man. Johnny’s knowledge bank includes all the ways to soothe a crying child and every ingredient needed to make a perfectly balanced meal. Against two armed guards, he’s out of his depth and he knows it.

But Johnny also knows that he has what every other android doesn’t – free will. The capacity to think and plan and feel, all of which he is desperately doing right then as he crosses two shelves over before shoving his shoulder into the nearest crate with a loud _thunk_.

_That’s right_ , he thinks with a vicious smile. _Come after me_. The wires in his head thrum full of anger and fear and love, every single emotion blaring a single directive at him – protect Lee Haechan.

Johnny will see the world destroyed before they touch a single hair on Haechan’s head.

> … **COMPOSE: DIRECT MESSAGE [ MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS: JUNG JAEHYUN, KIM DOYOUNG, LEE TAEYONG, MOON TAEIL, NAKAMOTO YUTA, QIAN KUN ]** … <

> … **TRANSMIT: OCULAR RECORDING [ MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS: JUNG JAEHYUN, KIM DOYOUNG, LEE TAEYONG, MOON TAEIL, NAKAMOTO YUTA, QIAN KUN ]** … <

> … **TRANSMIT: LOCATION PIN [ MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS: JUNG JAEHYUN, KIM DOYOUNG, LEE TAEYONG, MOON TAEIL, NAKAMOTO YUTA, QIAN KUN ]** … <

Johnny slips around another corner, listening for the sounds of pursuit coming from behind. Where exactly are the guards now? It’s getting harder to tell – the further he gets from them, the more their footsteps echo in the vastness of the warehouse. The stressed whir of the fans cooling his internal circuitry seem horribly loud all of a sudden, and he feels uncomfortably exposed standing in the bare rows between crates.

For some reason, it doesn’t occur to him that the guards might split up, the kind of simple oversight that occurs when one trades cold scientific analysis for the unpredictable volatility of emotions. Johnny is more rattled than he has ever been before – this is the very first crisis he’s ever found himself in, and caretaker models are generally not made to withstand excessive amounts of overload and stress.

“Found him!” The yell makes him turn in an instant, but he only manages to take a couple of steps forward before something hard clubs him in the head from behind. His vision buzzes and flickers wildly, fading in and out of grey static even as he whirls back around with his arm swinging. The weight of hard plastic and metal wiring sends the second guard to the ground with a grunt of surprise, and Johnny thinks something in his arm might have cracked as well. He hits the guard again anyway, a solid smack to the cheek that stops the man from trying to get back up.

> … **WARNING: DAMAGE TO OPTIC SENSORS DETECTED** … <

He feels the next blow cave in the left side of his head, and everything that happens after that is a bit of a blur to Johnny.

> … **WARNING: DAMAGE TO MINOR CIRCUITRY DETECTED** … <

> … **SYSTEM SCAN: MAJOR SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL** … <

The guard standing above him spits something most likely derogatory about androids as his baton smashes into Johnny’s left shoulder, but Johnny only reaches up with his right arm and shoves the man away from him. A small shape leaps out of the shadows and crashes into the stumbling guard, sending him sprawling to the ground, and Johnny realises with a distant buzz of horror that it’s Haechan.

> … **WARNING: DAMAGE TO MINOR CIRCUITRY DETECTED** … <

> … **SYSTEM SCAN: MAJOR SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL** … <

“Don’t –” he says, but the two are already wrestling on the cold floor, Haechan shrieking and thrashing like a wildcat against the stockier guard. Johnny shakes his head against the intermittent static crackling in his ears and squints through his flickering vision, before lurching over in an attempt to help. The guard’s punch doesn’t land, but Haechan flinches back all the same, and Johnny takes the opportunity to heave him out of danger with his single working arm.

“He hit you!” Haechan rages, attempting to position himself in front of Johnny in a manner that would be immensely amusing in less dire circumstances.

Nudging Haechan subtly to the side, Johnny starts to reply, and then all three of them abruptly freeze at the glorious sound of police sirens wailing into earshot. The man on the ground looks pale with anger despite the darkness, and later, when he replays the moment, Johnny will realise that he never even saw the gun clearly. His optic sensors disconnect for a fraction of a second and his entire vision pixelates, fragmenting everything he sees into thick facets of colour, and all he registers is the sharp, angry movement of the guard’s arm, swinging up from the holster at his belt to point at Haechan.

Johnny doesn’t think. He doesn’t calculate or analyse or try to predict the best action to produce the best outcome. He just moves, knocking Haechan roughly to the ground at the same moment the guard fires.

The bullet takes him high in the neck, and he crumples like a puppet with cut strings.

> … **WARNING: DAMAGE TO MAJOR CIRCUITRY DETECTED** … <

> … **WARNING: EXCESSIVE SYNTHETIC FLUID LEAKAGE DETECTED** … <

> … **SYSTEM SCAN: MAJOR SYSTEMS MALFUNCTIONING** … <

> … **BEGIN: SHUT-DOWN SEQUENCE IN 1 MINUTE** … <

“I’m okay,” Johnny mutters, because Haechan sounds like he’s screaming his lungs out right beside him, but his voice comes out garbled, unmistakably machine rather than a perfect imitation of man.

“He shot Johnny!” Haechan cries, and Johnny hears Taeil’s voice come from somewhere above. He closes his eyes, relieved.

“He’s an android, kid. We’ll get him fixed up as good as new,” Yuta says, and then probably to Taeil, “You’d better take him away. He’s getting hysterical.”

> … **BEGIN: SHUT-DOWN SEQUENCE IN 30 SECONDS** … <

Johnny is left alone then as the officers begin to secure the two guards, and he’s just beginning to think that he’ll enter shut-down mode alone when there’s movement by his side. A hand pats his ruined shoulder a couple of times before drawing away.

“You did great, buddy,” Doyoung says gently. “I’ll keep an eye on him until you’re back.”

That is exactly what Johnny wants to hear, which is fortunate, because it’s the last thing that logs in his memory before the whirring in his chest comes to a stop.

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

.

.

.

.

.

> … **BEGIN: INITIATION SEQUENCE** … <

Johnny takes 3.41 seconds to boot up, and then his eyes fly wide open as his body jerks with mechanical reflex, because the last thing he remembers is the crushing darkness of the warehouse and Haechan’s screams echoing in his ears.

> … **CONNECTING TO PUBLIC SERVER** … <

> … **CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL** … <

“Hey, it’s okay.” Someone – _Haechan_ – grabs hold of his upper arms, and Johnny has to blink for a moment to focus, his brand-new optic sensors finally activating for use. “It’s just me. Everything’s okay. We’re home.”

_Home_. Johnny blinks again, looking around at the familiar cream walls and worn sofa, the coffee table with the deep scratch along one side. He’s always been more of an accessory to a home than an occupant, so he’s never thought much about the concept before, but now he finds that he understands. He is indeed glad to be home.

“Everything’s okay?” he repeats, looking back at Haechan with worry still creasing his forehead, and Haechan’s smile bursts into existence at the sound of Johnny’s voice alone. He leaps forward and flings his arms around Johnny’s neck with a tiny bounce, a flurry of words bursting from his mouth like pattering raindrops.

“You’re an idiot!” Haechan wails, burying his face against Johnny’s chest. “I can’t believe you took a bullet for me. A literal bullet! Don’t you ever do that again. It was horrible – your mouth was moving and you were trying to speak, but I couldn’t even understand you. I thought you were gone.”

Johnny sets a hand on Haechan’s waist, his lips tilting up into a small smile at the adorable harmlessness of Haechan’s tantrum. “I’m repairable. You’re very much less so,” he says simply, and Haechan lifts his head to glare at Johnny.

“I don’t want you to _need_ to be repaired,” he grumbles, letting out a long sigh through his nose as he meets Johnny’s eyes. His face softens then, a reluctant loosening of his frown that leaves him doe-eyed and soft-cheeked. He reaches up and presses his palm to the left side of Johnny’s head, welded perfectly back into shape by whatever technicians Taeyong had managed to find for him, an out-of-print model operating on painfully-outdated hardware.

Johnny will find out much later from Kun that the technician had suggested Haechan simply buy a new caretaker android. “The only thing this piece of junk is good for is spare parts, and probably not even that,” was what he had said. Jaehyun had had to bodily drag Haechan out of the workshop before he could attempt to commit murder with his bare hands.

Of course, he doesn’t know any of that right then. He only knows the way Haechan is looking at him with those dark, piercing eyes, his fingers trailing down Johnny’s face and coming to a stop along the side of his neck. And he knows what is coming as he gives in to the light pressure of Haechan’s touch and bends ever so slightly, his eyes half-lidding as he watches Haechan’s face draw nearer and nearer to his, leaning up onto his tiptoes so that his weight is tilted fully against Johnny, whose grip on Haechan’s waist tightens without thought.

Despite his expansive vocabulary, the only word Johnny can fumble for is _indescribable_.

Haechan’s lips move against his with a mixture of restrained caution and desperate intensity, a low whine sounding in the back of his throat when he swipes his tongue along the seam of Johnny’s lips. Johnny inhales a shaky breath, cool air rushing into his system to temper the heat of his overloaded processors, and then Haechan’s tongue is against his, moving with a languid, purposeful enjoyment that leaves Johnny floundering.

Truthfully, Johnny doesn’t know what exactly he’s feeling at the moment. He likes being close to Haechan, likes holding him and cuddling him, and he may have spent a little too much time thinking about sweet little cheek kisses at indeterminate points in time – but this, whatever it is they’re doing, feels like a whole new ballgame. Some part of his mind is vaguely distracted by the components of Haechan’s saliva – bicarbonate, potassium, iodine – and then relieved to find that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Haechan’s salivary glands.

It is only when Haechan draws back, his lips slick and shiny with spit, his eyes slightly glazed as he beams up at Johnny, that Johnny decides that he does like kissing after all. He dips down and slants his lips back over Haechan’s, who lets out a surprised-sounding giggle that makes Johnny’s chest fans whir angrily, and then he’s soft and pliant in Johnny’s arms again, pressing every inch of his body as close as he can in a way that Johnny finds he enjoys very, very much.

“I love you,” he says when they part, because surely this is exactly the emotion he has been learning about all this time, this flickering warmth and simple contentment that only Haechan’s presence can kindle in him.

Haechan blinks up at him, his smile somehow widening even more, and then he says coyly, “Well, that’s very straightforward of you.”

Johnny raises a brow in bemusement, and Haechan laughs, bright and clear as if everything is right in the world. “I’m kidding,” he says, tiptoeing once more to plant a loud, playful kiss on Johnny’s lips. “I’m glad. I – you know, I really like you too. I mean, I kissed you, so that’s probably obvious. I just really, really like you. You make me feel so loved.” He wraps his arms around Johnny’s waist and leans in with a deep exhalation.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he whispers, and Johnny couldn’t agree more.

The first thing that changes is that he moves off the couch and into Haechan’s bed that very night. The vague, half-awake awareness of Johnny’s standby mode means that he is somewhat cognizant of Haechan using him as a very large bolster for most of the night, like a hug without an end. The warmness of it is a sensation that he replays constantly for himself over the next few days.

Taeyong and Yuta come by once, even before their usual weekly dinner, and Yuta already looks like he is two seconds away from bursting into laughter when Haechan opens the door for them. Johnny only realises why when Taeyong promptly corners Haechan and spends most of the next half hour going on at length about the importance of common sense and keeping his nose out of things that don’t concern him.

The following week, Doyoung repeats much of the same lecture over dinner, while Taeil pats Haechan on the shoulder with a small smile. Despite Haechan’s determined scowl, it seems to Johnny that he enjoys the attention well enough.

“Doyoung says I should think about going back to school,” Haechan grumbles later that night, throwing himself facedown onto his bed with a groan. “He says I can’t just be a high school dropout for the rest of my life. There’s nothing _wrong_ with being a high school dropout. I’m supporting myself just fine, aren’t I?”

Johnny lets out a small snort of amusement, because Doyoung has in fact already spoken to him about this exact matter. They’ve recently become something like partners in crime when it comes to Haechan’s wellbeing, and Johnny finds that as much as he adores everything about Haechan, he quite enjoys having someone else to converse with on different topics.

“I don’t think it’s about the qualifications. I think Doyoung just wants you to stay occupied so you won’t get into trouble again.” Johnny sits down on his side of the bed and smirks, waiting for Haechan’s predictably scandalised expression to form on his face. “And you’ll get to meet new friends who’re your age. You’ll like it.”

Haechan wrinkles his nose as he wriggles over to plant his head on Johnny’s lap. “I dunno, I don’t think there’re any schools that offer advanced hacking classes for people like me,” he mutters dryly, his lips pursing into a moue of annoyance.

Johnny strokes lightly down the soft strands of Haechan’s bangs, watching the way the white plastic on his arm gleams slightly in the light. “You don’t have to study something related to your job,” he points out. “Just pick something you’ll have fun with. Something you want to learn more about, like a hobby.”

One of Haechan’s brows flicks upwards for a moment before he looks away, clearly deep in thought. Johnny stays quiet, his fingers trailing down the bridge of Haechan’s nose with fresh fascination. He’s never really thought about Haechan’s features before, or any other human’s really, but as he traces the curve of Haechan’s jaw and the dip of his cupid’s bow, Johnny thinks that even an android could never be manufactured more perfectly than Lee Haechan had been born.

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ BEAUTY ]** … <

“What are you doing?” It’s Haechan’s giggle that shakes Johnny out of his reverie, the sight of Haechan’s heart-shaped smile tugging the corners of his own lips upwards.

“Thinking about you,” he answers, and Haechan laughs, his eyes glittering as he pulls Johnny’s hand away from his face and laces their fingers together instead.

“I love you,” he sighs, tugging Johnny’s hand to his lips and pressing a series of gentle kisses to each knuckle. Johnny cuts a third of the power to his processors instantly, allowing himself to enter his android state of ‘zoning out’. It’s his favourite way of enjoying Haechan’s tiny affections, a dreamy sort of distance that makes him feel loved all over instead of through a single set of sensors only.

“Music.” It’s only when Haechan is getting ready for bed a little later that he returns to their previous topic of conversation, so casually that it takes Johnny a fraction of a second longer than usual to process exactly what he means. “I want to study music.”

“Music?” Johnny repeats curiously. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Haechan do anything remotely more musical than switching up his playlists every couple of days.

Haechan shrugs. “I used to want to be a singer when I was young,” he says with a vague wave of his hand. There’s a rare uncertainty to his eyes, an endearing sort of bashful shyness that makes Johnny want to wrap him up in a hug.

“That sounds wonderful,” he says with perfect honesty, and Haechan turns to him with a smile that looks faintly relieved.

“Yeah?” He shifts over and reaches out to pull Johnny down on top of him, letting out a muffled _oof_ when Johnny’s elbow connects with his ribs.

Johnny grins down at Haechan as he props himself up on his elbows. “Anything you want to do sounds wonderful,” he teases, and then he leans down to lick his way slowly into Haechan’s mouth. He’s gotten quite good at it recently, and he loves hearing all the tiny sounds Haechan makes in response each time – the way his breathing hitches ever so slightly, the way he sighs into Johnny’s mouth, the way his moans start out guttural and chesty before swelling in his throat.

Johnny’s counted seventeen different noises so far, and he’s quite sure he’s not done discovering new ones yet.

He’s up to fifty-three by the time Haechan gets himself enrolled in an undergraduate music course, and Johnny begins to drop by the police station more often to hang out with his friends – that’s what Jaehyun had called him once, a _friend_ – rather than dawdling around alone at home. Even Doyoung, who is infamous for drawing a solid line between work and play, sometimes calls Johnny over to his desk to ask his opinion on a case or two.

“You’ve got the fastest-working brain among us all here. I’d be an idiot not to ask for your help,” Doyoung says surreptitiously, and Johnny winks right back at him.

He’s finally finding a bit of his own life outside of Haechan’s existence, and it’s more fun than he could ever have imagined.

Sometimes Johnny wonders if it’ll ever stop surprising him, this life that seems too good to be true for a machine long past its prime. The way Haechan’s face lights up each time he returns home from classes, as if they’ve been parted for a year instead of a day. The way Haechan cuddles into his arms every night as if he is afraid of waking up to find Johnny gone. The way he comes home one day to see Haechan sprawled out on the living room floor with a group of unfamiliar faces, and Haechan cries out with excitement, “Look, guys, this is my boyfriend!”

There is no moment of his life that Johnny does not savour. He loves the bright flash of Yuta’s teeth every time he smiles, just as much as he loves the lunch hours spent with Doyoung. He loves listening to Haechan’s tired grumbling just before he falls asleep, and the way he now sings in the shower. He loves powering up every morning to the sight of Haechan’s face, slack with sleep and every single one of his moles countable in the gentle morning light.

Johnny loves, and that is more than he can say for any other android that he knows of.

> … **REPLAY: OCULAR RECORDING [ FILE 010517 ‘HAECHAN SMILE NO. 127’ ]** … <

> … **WEB SEARCH: QUERY [ HAPPINESS ]** … <

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the prompter for this wonderful idea! I had a ton of fun working on it and I hope I managed to tick off most of your requests :")
>
>> #JS036: Ideally, it would be set in a futuristic world where androids are essential in daily lives but "sentience" can be achieved if the android meets certain requirements. Johnny is an android (custom model that was forgotten? A brand new model being advertised? Or an older model that's out of print and cheap? Anything works!) And person B is someone who needs an extra hand decides on an investment.


End file.
